Winter Vacation Day 4/Night 5 Phi Phi: Private Long Boat Tour and Party on the Beach?

When planning for our winter vacation Josh decided that he really wanted to take a private long boat tour of the islands around Phi Phi. A long boat is a large (and long) wooden boat with a motor attached to it. The long boats vary in size but for the most part they fit anywhere from 5-10 people. Our first stop on the tour was Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh which was a beautiful beach. We took a small hike to the back of the island where there was a small wooden platform that overlooked a beautiful bay area. Next up on the tour was the bay area we had looked at previously, where we went snorkeling. After we had finished up snorkeling around we discovered that luck was not on our side when we chose our long boat. Apparently the battery on our long boat’s motor wasn’t working which required our boat to be jump-started every time it stopped….not the greatest thing to happen but, Josh and I were too busy enjoying the beautiful water and weather to care too much about the inconvenience.

Long tailed boats….waiting to be taken out for the day

Our bucket for the day

I’m on a boat!

First stop: Maya beach

The bay area behind Josh is where we would later go snorkeling

We walked from one side of the island to the other. The place we walked to overlooked where we would go snorkeling

Just trying to kick some small fish in the water, don’t worry I wasn’t fast enough to get close

After the snorkeling portion of our tour we traveled around the islands before making a pit stop in the middle of nowhere when the engine just stopped working. We took the opportunity to just swim around in the ocean and Josh even had to dive down and free the anchor from some coral. Fun times.

We passed by viking cave…I’m pretty sure it’s not authentic

We then ended the tour on monkey beach, which as the name implies is a beach filled with monkeys. And trash…so much trash. Many tourists come to monkey beach and feed/have food stolen from the monkeys. I was in the later category. It was completely my fault for deciding I needed a snack in front of the monkeys but it was going on hour 7 of our boat tour and I was hungry. I thought I was being sneaky by hiding the snacks in my life vest but alas, I didn’t fool the monkey that came charging at me from the forest. I did what anyone would do and ran for my life from the 6 pound monkey while screaming as loud as I could. When this didn’t stop him I threw the snacks at him and ran away. Let me tell you…it isn’t fun watching a monkey eat your trail mix when you are STARVING. But, it will make for a rather entertaining story later.

This is a real scared face…I am super afraid of monkeys. Well, not monkeys but the fact that they could bite me!

There are monkeys everywhere on the beach just hanging out and eating the food tourists bring them (or in my case steal from)

It was so hard for me to get this close….the monkeys on this beach have amber colored eyes and seem kind of evil

Josh was a lot braver with getting close to the monkeys

Monkey beach ended our tour of the Phi Phi islands and we then napped and headed out for the nightlife the island had to offer. We started off watching some Muay Thai boxing at a local bar. One of the draws at this particular place is that they let the tourists “box” each other. Josh and Natalie really wanted Natalie and me to get in the ring and I almost did except….everybody uses the same shin guards and shorts…no thank you!

Drinking Chang (Thai beer) and watching some chicks “fight” each other

Rules of fighting a friend

There were some parties on the beach going on but from what I could tell, the mostly European crowd wasn’t fond of dancing…they pretty much just stood close together on the makeshift dance floor on the beach. Josh, Natalie and I just chilled in some beach chairs and smoked some hookah until the wee hours of the night.